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Slayer Silver Wolf writes with this excerpt from TorrentFreak:
"'On October 26 the remaining LimeWire developers were forced to shut down the company's servers and modify remote settings in the filesharing client to try to harm the Gnutella network. They were then laid off. Shortly after, a horde of piratical monkeys climbed aboard the abandoned ship, mended its sails, polished its cannons, and released it free to the community.' And so, LimeWire Pirate Edition (LPE) was born. Based on the LimeWire 5.6 beta that was briefly released earlier this year and then withdrawn when Lime Wire LLC lost its lawsuit, LPE is now in the wild. In many ways, it is better than the version killed by the RIAA."

Limewire has been so painfully irrelevant for the past 8 years now that it laughable to even still hear the name. It's like when an old man mentions "That damn Napster" as a free music service. I can only imagine the people who still use this thing are admins just wanting to test their corporate anti-virus.

Having an ecosystem of different file sharing software and protocols is valuable insofar as it makes it harder to prevent all file sharing. Assuming you don't want to shut down all file sharing of course. The authorities tend to focus on whatever are the protocols du jour (at the moment bittorrent and rapidshare-type file lockers), but meanwhile you have all sorts of protocols from the past like gnutella, dc++, edonkey etc still happily working away mostly under the radar. I'd guess if you're sharing stuff you'd be less likely to land an enforcement notice if you're using a more obscure protocol. Maybe you might escape notice of deep packet inspection systems and so avoid throttling by your ISP, if they have implemented that.

Just guessing, but in any case it seems sensible not to just assume that bittorrent is the apotheosis of file-sharing, and that nothing else will ever be useful.

In a democracy with perfect information, that may be true. We don't live in one of those.

People with minority tastes usually DO have better information because they take the time to seek it out, and the Internet is a fantastic tool for that purpose.

Everybody else buys what they are told to, more or less. The "music industry" continues to pretend that this market is the only one, because that is the market they understand, and they do what they can through the courts to stop other market mechanisms from work

My cousin uses limewire. How do I know? I was called in to remove the layers of viruses, Trojans, and rootkits from the machine. As soon as I saw that Limewire was on the machine, I knew this was a lost cause.

Limewire has been so painfully irrelevant for the past 8 years now that it laughable to even still hear the name. It's like when an old man mentions "That damn Napster" as a free music service. I can only imagine the people who still use this thing are admins just wanting to test their corporate anti-virus.

You'r right. Limewire is utterly irrelevant as a file sharing service - but it makes a useful case study in the use of litigation to destroy a product. If this pirate edition is well accepted, and traffic on the gnutella network increases, Hopefully the people that sued them will learn that lengthy, costly ligation against software developers is utterly futile if the developers release the code into the wild and the software is back a month later. Hopefully those who develop efficient file sharing paradigm

Y'know, Napster, and in turn OpenNap, are still what I believe to be the pinnacle of what music sharing is and could have been. I haven't used it anytime recently, but the last time I checked AudioGnome was still alive and kicking.

Parts of Napster, like being able to browse each others' music library is still sorely missed IMHO.

Limewire is written in Java, meaning it is portable. Limewire can download via a Bittorrent mesh of pieces, and it can also download via a Gnutella mesh of pieces, with Gnutella often able to use Tigertree hashes. So you have the best of both worlds.

I don't see what has come out that surpasses Limewire. Bittorrent is dependent on a web page for searching for files and for finding peers. DHT and Peer Exchange help in this somewhat. Bittorrent is also dependent on web pages in searching for files. Tribler, Cubit and Torrent Exchange are attempts to solve this, but nothing has come out that deals with this, while it has been OK from day one with Gnutella. Gnutella is fundamentally peer-to-peer and extensible. If something better has replaced Limewire I haven't heard of it.

Not really. It's disturbing just how many idiots still use it. For instance, the Yahoo! Answers (that site has the lowest collective IQ of any popular page on the internet, even beating Youtube commenters) computer section has been filled with people asking what to do now that Limewire was shut down. Hey guys, maybe that's why you keep asking about how to get rid of viruses, too, because the crap that comes up on Limewire is lousy with them.

True, but some trackers will not allow you to seed more than a certain number of torrents before it stops accepting connections from you. I've had this happen several times before when all my torrents went dead for a few days until I noticed that the tracker was sending back a "Too many torrents" error message. Pruning the list of active torrents a bit returned it to normal.

Also, I'm not sure how true this is for other people, but for me, most files in torrents have an abhorrent naming convention, and just going into my giant default "Bittorrent Downloads" directory doesn't work well. Most stuff I'm going to rename and move to a more organized directory structure within a few days of download.

Don't get me wrong, I still use Bittorrent more than anything, but for older or less popular files, I often find them on the ED2k network via aMule. Downloads are like molasses, but sometimes that's ok depending on what you're trying to find.

Also, I'm not sure how true this is for other people, but for me, most files in torrents have an abhorrent naming convention, and just going into my giant default "Bittorrent Downloads" directory doesn't work well. Most stuff I'm going to rename and move to a more organized directory structure within a few days of download.

I symlink to the horribly named files from another tidy "library" directory, so if I want to watch Super Troopers, I go to Library --> Movies --> Super Troopers (2001).avi which points to/media/drivex/torrents/[LEETDOODZ]SUPER.TROPPERS.XVID.VENUM.LOLZ.2134234/super-troopers-hi-xvid.avi

Also, I'm not sure how true this is for other people, but for me, most files in torrents have an abhorrent naming convention, and just going into my giant default "Bittorrent Downloads" directory doesn't work well.

Vuze allows you to rename the files in the torrent on the fly, so that you can have them named whatever you want, with no problems when sending to peers.

that an infinate number of monkeys, working for an infinate amount of time will eventually recreate the works of shakespere.. does this mean the *IAA will seek to outlaw monkeys, or just the practice of giving monkeys keyboards?

Too many high profile special interests are attached to either monkeys or keyboards. Therefore, the *IAA will have the FDA interrupt the normal food sources of monkeys; and require them to eat the same processed foods as humans. From the artificial preservatives and genetically engineered rape seed oil, the monkeys will eventually develop attitude problems and social dysfunction. Depending on the prevailing genetic traits of the monkeys, they will either recreate Linux or MS Windows.

that an infinate number of monkeys, working for an infinate amount of time will eventually recreate the works of shakespere.. does this mean the *IAA will seek to outlaw monkeys, or just the practice of giving monkeys keyboards?

If the RIAA has proven anything, it's that an infinite number of monkeys, working for an infinate amount of time will eventually write a series of Vin Diesel movies.

that an infinate number of monkeys, working for an infinate amount of time will eventually recreate the works of shakespere.. does this mean the *IAA will seek to outlaw monkeys, or just the practice of giving monkeys keyboards?

I think the "*IAA" in this case is the Publishers' Guild of America, but I don't know. (I don't live in the USA, FWIW.)

[Also, starting a sentence in the subject and continuing it in the body annoys some people. Also also, it's `infin/i/te' and `/S/hakespe/are/'. JTYMLTK]

that an infinate number of monkeys, working for an infinate amount of time will eventually recreate the works of shakespere.. does this mean the *IAA will seek to outlaw monkeys, or just the practice of giving monkeys keyboards?

Neither, since Shakespeares works are in the Public domain and we don't have an infinite amount of time.

However, Dan Browns novels will take a dozen monkeys about two weeks, so I think you might be on to something there.

there is a difference.. the idea is that the monkeys are smashing their keyboards, producing mostly random garbage... with a small chance of actually forming words and ideas by mistake... or perhaps eventually they come up with written language the parallells ours... and by chance rewrite literature..

Bloggers on the other hand produce seemingly random garbage that gets copy and pasted to other blogs, with no chance of forming ideas by mistake.

Fair enough, but when copying long strings of characters over and over like that, one might at least hope for the occasional mutation, and that once in a while one of those would actually be beneficial.

But yes, I avoid LimeWire like the plague after several spyware debacles and am kind of curious why, if LimeWire's servers are down, you would use it over Gnutella when the networks it is connecting to are (I assume) all of Gnutella's servers?

Because you don't live in the very small section of the world where Spotify is allowed [wikipedia.org]? Also, LimeWire is GPL where as Spotify is proprietary (what are they storing about you?).

Us europeans will stop pretending Spotify is available everywhere when all the americans realize that those of us over here can't download TV shows through the iTunes store and that Hulu blocks access as well (well, there are always US iTunes accounts and proxies but it's a serious PITA).

Mostly to pander the old divided world that technically came into being thanks to differences in tech choices, but that the industry later learned to harness for economic gains (staggered movie releases, anyone?). High speed net connections (especially flat rate and always on, allowing many2one p2p transfers) have thrown a very big wrench into this, and what we are seeing is the trashing of a dying animal (lawsuits, more draconian laws and more). This as at least one nation appears to have bet the national

Us europeans will stop pretending Spotify is available everywhere when all the americans realize that those of us over here can't download TV shows through the iTunes store and that Hulu blocks access as well (well, there are always US iTunes accounts and proxies but it's a serious PITA).

This gets modded informative? Some guy bitching offtopic that he can't get his American TV shows when he lives in Europe? On a thread about LimeWire?

What, do I have access to all of Great Britain's television shows? Do I have access to all the programming in Spain or Sweden? Do you think, for some reason, that because we're Americans we have everything over here? Heads up, we're supposed to be the idiots!

Why is it when distribution contracts prevent you from enjoying something over Hulu, you

Someone should create a service that matches Americans who want access to iPlayer with Brits who want access to Hulu. Each user would send data to their peers and receive data from their peers, and everyone would get to watch what they wanted. We could call it... I don't know... peer to peer?

If you need to search with characters outside Latin-1 your choices are limited. Limewire is one of only two Gnutella clients available for Windows that support Unicode. Unfortunately they're both Java apps to you basically have to pick your poison.

Well (a) you have to pay for the full spotify service, the free version is limited in the amount of time you can listen and has ads, and (b) there are other things than music that people download (movies, programs...)

This sort of evolutionary jump is precisely what happened when they sued Napster. These people must think that there is some sort of upper bound on technological development, and that if they keep suing, eventually file sharing will die.

Of course, these are the people who tried to block FM radio, so I guess I should not be too surprised.

Well yeah, but if you take the example you gave... look at where FM is right now: full of rules and copyright laws. You can't just setup a radio transmitter and start giving any music you want to your listeners. So IMHO they kinda won that battle.

FM has an inherent technological requirement for regulation: If two stations broadcast at once in proximity, neither one is useable. More advanced communications methods are not bound by the conflicts of electromagnetic radiation.

The difference here is, someone was making money selling LimeWire to people for the purpose of downloading music. Now there's no one benefitting financially.

It's the difference between making a copy of a CD for your friend, and making a copy of a CD and selling it to someone. The latter is what most people think of as actual copyright related piracy (as opposed to boat-related piracy). Selling copied, fake, or otherwise unauthorized goods.

the only way to destroy filesharing is to destroy the internet. since that's not going to happen, and because you would need more money controlling and monitoring traffic (effectively) than any money you profit off of media, guess what: game over

simple economics 101 have spoken: filesharing is here to stay, and the only thing that will die is distributors who make money off of distributing content. boo hoo

economics is about supply and demand. the internet is disruptive media. it is disruptive, because it changes the basic technology, and therefore the basic economics, of media distribution: one teenager in 2010 has more global reach and distribution power than bertelsmann, time warner, sony, etc., in 1985

so when the cost associated with supply = $0, demand follows to that natural economically determined price point, and no other price is possible. you can't enforce a marketplace form a dead technological era on us

people will still make money off of music, movies, etc.: ancillary real world revenues. like concerts, like cinema houses. avatar is the most profitable movie ever made... all in movie houses. concerts reap millions for artists. but DVDs, CDs... it's all going away. artistry is not dying, only the useless middleman. do not weep for him and do not believe his trollish pronouncements about hurting the artist. sure it will take time, and the death throes will be mighty, but the writing is on the wall. game over

there is nothing for you to do, dear old school media distributors, save one thing: just hurry up and die already

because you would need more money controlling and monitoring traffic (effectively) than any money you profit off of media

Tho I agree with your post the problem is that they won't be spending their own money to monitor the 'net. They have already co-opted law enforcement to go after digital pirates and they want the ISPs to bear the cost of monitoring.
So ultimately all these costs of monitoring and enforcement are then born by us, but the profits remain theirs.

Not really, no. They just need to block incoming connections to every consumer, requiring every connection to pass through a server (datacenters would be allowed to have incoming connections), which would be easier to track and kill.

Sure, a few services like Skype would die too, but most of the Web wouldn't really be affected.

so when the cost associated with supply = $0, demand follows to that natural economically determined price point, and no other price is possible

The problem is, the cost to supply isn't zero. Somebody paid for the instruments, equipment, studio time, etc... etc... That someone usually insists on being paid back - so the natural price point is nonzero.Nor is the cost to distribute (what you confuse with the cost to supply) zero. Servers, connectivity, bandwidth, it all costs money. So again, that

If I spend money making 1000 widgets expecting to sell out completely, that's my decision as the producer/investor. Whether I find customers who want to buy those 1000 widgets is a different story. If I don't sell enough widgets to break even, I lose money on a BAD investment

The customer couldn't care any less what the supply cost is. They only care about the price--and will only buy if that price is within a range they are willing to pay.

musicians make music because they love music. they do it for that reward alone. any money beyond that fact is just icing on the cake. no one goes into music saying "i have to generate a positive net cash flow in the third quarter." no one writes songs like that, well, no songs you want to listen to anyways. maybe some say "i'm going to write music to impress chicks and get in their pants", but again, that's not money. ego, fame, charisma: that's what makes music. removing money from the equation changes nothing. maybe makes it better

besides, even if you did look at music as only a financial spreadsheet, you are not thinking like a true capitalist. you are thinking like a communist: that we are COERCED to pay for the development of music up front, regardless of quality. a true capitalist says "i think this is a good spot to invest in a restaurant" or "i think we should shovel money into developing this business avenue". risk... and reward. sometimes in capitalism you take risk and there is no reward, you lose money. but there is no such thing as "pay up to support this, you are forced to."

likewise with music: you invest in making a song, and MAYBE someday later you get money for the effort. no guarantee. heck, there was no guarantee before the internet: there were always starving artists, and always will be. you give your songs out for free. if they are liked, you make money touring. THAT'S the new world. and its the same as the old world, before the mid1800s, when corporatism (not capitalism) made music an enforced payment affair

regardless, you are simply putting out the standard middleman distributor troll that filesharing hurts artists. no, it only hurts middleman distributors. fuck them. there will always be music, most of them will be starving artists, as they always have been, and a few will find fame and fortune touring or advertising, same as it always has been. the only thing that changes, is the middleman dies. good riddance

musicians make music because they love music. they do it for that reward alone. any money beyond that fact is just icing on the cake. no one goes into music saying "i have to generate a positive net cash flow in the third quarter." no one writes songs like that, well, no songs you want to listen to anyways. maybe some say "i'm going to write music to impress chicks and get in their pants", but again, that's not money. ego, fame, charisma: that's what makes music. removing money from the equation changes not

I find it presumptuous that you would pretend to know the motivations behind my intentions as an artist. I just got off of tour a couple of weeks ago. Your idea of what touring is completely fabricated fantasy. All property rights is rooted in Intellectual Property, by the way.

"At some point, you've got to get some level of compensation equivalent to the work. Not neccessarily more to any degree, but equivalent."

no, never. if YOU decide to become a musician and invest in recording equipment and instruments and slave away hours of your life that is on YOU, not ME. i owe you nothing

if however, you make that investment, and you get a following, heck even if a local small following, who are willing to pony up for a gig of yours live, or an advertiser wants to use your music on an adv

and which any future KISS will too, even if you told them it would only be losing money to make music, there will still be future KISSes, simply on the amount of sex they get

there is no guarantee that you get money from music. but it is pretty much 100% guaranteed that you will get women. chicks love the musicians. even the ugly asocial nasty ones. so that's all the motivation you need